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Chapter One

Despite the fact that it was autumn, the day was sunny as could be. It was that deceiving sort of sunny. The type that rushes through your windows and warms your home, steeling you to step outside only to be hit by chilling winter air that's rolled in for the next season a little too prematurely. However, it didn't stop people from enjoying the lack of rain, which was the only benefit of the deceptively icy weather.

The view from my window was ethereal, to me at least. I had spent so much of my youth in the woodland so to now sit in my crescent window and watch the birds dart amongst the trees was a magnificence I treasured deeply. In fact, I treasured this whole home, my life here, and the freedom I had been bestowed to start a new in a city where I was but another face passing on the streets. The attention, the fame, the fortune were all things I grew to care little for. Peace was the most expensive gift I had brought myself but also the most invaluable. I knew these woods well, the view of them at least. I worshipped them but dared not to step foot into them any more than I had to. Bad memories.

I had moved my desk to oversee the woods a few months back. My productivity finally flatlined after I came off my meds so I took the spiritual path and decided some forest bathing would be useful for my senses. It was for that reason that I spotted him.

As usual, I took my quarter-of an hour break, breaks that would last longer than my actual work but progress was progress no matter how small. He stood out. The forest was christened with leaves stained orange and brown and green and grey. The floor was still dew covered, with tropical greens and marshmellow moss. And there amongst the trees, some while back he stood. Beautiful and rare. I never understood what people meant when they would look at me differently, passing me in the streets before doing a double-take. I had questioned Lily about this times prior to today. She would say: "There's something about you, it's hard to put a finger on it. It's as though your face is a perfect mosaic but somewhere a piece is odd, the colours slightly off, so slight you can't tell which piece it is." I had thought about that for a while and seemingly so through her answer, she had too. That's why I enjoyed the town I was in now, everyone minds their business, too polite to voice their uncanny valley observations. Now as I saw him amongst the trunks, I understood what it meant. My eyes bestowed a thousand faces a day yet his, drew me in like a hapless man to a sirens call on a stormy night's sea. So perfect, yet so mismatched.

I had known of his presence in town for a few days now unbeknownst to him. Last week i'd received a "heads up" text from an old friend, an acquaintance I guess since we'd only shared few conversations. But it was a few days after I first noticed him as he bobbed and weaved like an eel amongst the ocean of people in the early daybreak haste. His face undeniably recognisable unfettered by my tinted windows and engagement on the road. My gaze, wandering at the perfect time.

As much as I would still abhor to acknowledge it, he still had a handle on my soul, his conciseness infesting even my most shielded dreams. I paid no attention to them, I cared nought for his life at present. It felt like a heartless trick at times, as though his soul had become intertwined with mine and no matter the brutal severing I inflicted upon it, remnants remained. Spoiling my peace.

"Hey?" A hoarse voice resonated through the halls, pulling my awareness from the diamond in the rough.

"Hey, you alright?" I replied, footsteps inching nearer before concluding at my doorstep.

"Yeah, there's fuck all for breakfast." Lily's eyes exuded fatigue, her emerald moons eclipsed by her bowing eyelids. "I'm gonna go pick some up. Can I get you anything?"

"Nah, I'm good thanks, sure there's nothing?" I had acquired the overcome and adapt survivalist skill many years ago, nothing was never nothing... there's always something.

"Nope, you wanna come with?" Her body reclined against the door, steadying herself as it yielded open. I didn't care much for food and I didn't care much for leaving home.

"I'm good, where you heading?"

"Supermarket, gonna fill up the fridge so I never have to leave the house at 7 am again." A huff dragged from her lips before being outranked by a yawn.

"I like the plan, see you later." I maintained eye contact till she plunged beyond view, then my eyes redirected to the hallway till the door paraded open then crescendoed shut.

Gone. The woods lay fruitless and barren, remarkably so, not even a bird flew amongst the leafage. It was utterly hushed, my window open ever so slightly, the winds placidly still. Then...

Knock... knock.. knock.

Lucky things have always come to me in rounds of three but my gut told me no luck would befall me at present. I wished it was simply Lily, forgetting her keys in her early morning fugue state but I was no fool. It was with that awareness that coursed through me I took residence at the top of the stairs, tiptoeing one foot forward after the other before residing on the last step. I felt as though I could see him, his profile traced in grey dread, so potent it seeped through the pores of the wood.

"One second." I plunged a deep breath inwards, my foot transferring to the floor. My keys swung from the hook. I reached out, my index finger climbing towards them. Fingertips, so sensitive, so receptive to the stimuli encircling them. They had been heated by the sun, a shockwave travelling through my arms, jerking me from them. A welcomed sensation. A transient pain that drew me from the thoughts agitating my mind. I grasped the keys, hoping for another zap but the novelty had passed. I watched as I twisted the keys in the door, as the door ripped open. I wished the door would open forever, taking an eternity to expose him. But my luck had run thin. The door tore open.

"Hey."